eBay's Plan to Force PayPal Rejected Down Under

Jm_aus writes "eBay's plan to force all users to use PayPal only has been rejected by Australia's competition regulator, the ACCC. This followed 650 submissions from eBay users as well as from Australian banks, other payment services, the Australian Reserve Bank, and (anonymously) Google, which aired a lot of dirty laundry about PayPal's unresponsiveness and failure to sign up to the local banking code of conduct. Apparently the public benefits from eBay's 'Bad Buyer Experience' elimination program are likely to be 'minimal.' There is a period for appeals."

Comments

Right, because PayPal's better...

[autocracy]

As a buyer, I really want to use my credit card directly. PayPal, last time I used it, only covered a $200 return or so. I went straight through to my credit card company (which is linked to my PayPal account) and did a chargeback through them. PayPal sent me a nastigram saying if you keep that up, we'll cut you off.

Yeah, thanks but no thanks EBay.

Re:Right, because PayPal's better...

[autocracy]

I did my homework, and that's why they have my credit card on the back end (which, thankfully, can tell them to get stuffed). You're right about linking to any account that keeps cash on hand in it. PayPal also has a long history of locking cash in its customer accounts. Really, they're just terrible to everybody involved. I don't believe I've bought anything with my account since that time.

From a seller's point of view: The EBay style of charging the seller commission, then charging the seller a percentage of PayPal too kinda gets me. Sure, they're treating them like the separate company they used to be, but come on. I suppose you get what you get for having something less than a true credit card merchant account (which costs).

As an aside rant, I'm sad that nobody does a cash discount anymore. I'd happily pay you on a 2% reduction to save you the 3% or whatever my CC company charges. Well, really to save myself 2%, but you'd profit as a vendor!

Re:Right, because PayPal's better...

[tlhIngan]

Lots of places still do minimum limits, though. "Your transaction must be at least $3.00 to use a credit card here."

That's against the terms of the merchant agreement to require a lower limit.

What you might be thinking of is the similar "Minimum $3 charge if using credit card". Your quote implies that if you buy a $1 item, you can't pay by credit card. My quote says if you want to buy a $1 item, you will be charged $3 for it instead if you use a credit card.

It's a very subtle thing - it implies a cash discount (buy item for $1 via cash, or $3 via credit card), but it also isn't (if you buy 3 $1 items, it's $3).

What I want to know is if merchant accounts don't allow cash discounts, why don't they go after the tons of people who advertise prices, then say "price is after 3% cash discount"?

Can somebody explain?

[muellerr1]

In most countries, why is PayPal allowed to act like a bank without being regulated like a bank? I've never understood how they get away with that.

Re:elimination program?

[clang_jangle]

What's that ""Bad Buyer Experience" elimination program" ?

If my personal experience is any indication, it's the process whereby upon reporting being victimised by an eBay "power seller" eBay threatens to find you guilty of being a "bad buyer" and threatens to place sanctions on your eBay and Paypal accounts unless you pay up. The workaround I found was to change all my eBay user info to the crooked seller's email address and a fictitious physical address and I canceled my paypal account. :P

It probably helped that I did this within an hour of eBay finding in favor of the dishonest seller (item was a Chinese counterfeit and did not function properly, also they attempted to charge for two items when I only bought one item). This was about three months ago, I've not heard anything about the matter since. Obviously, eBay lost me as a customer.

Verfied Accounts

[drxenos]

I found out the hard way that when you "verify" your account, the bank account used to verify your PayPal account becomes the primary account. All payments you make through PayPal come out of it by default. I called them because all my purchases were coming out of my bank account and not my credit card. They said the bank account has to be the primary, and the only way to change it was to revert to "unverified," which I did. I like the protection I get from using a credit card. Payments extracted from a checking account has no where near the same protection.